#chasing bilbo

Traveling with Mirkwood Elves is nowhere near as fun as traveling with Northern Rangers or with the sons of Lord Elrond.

It hasn't helped that the day after we left the halls of King Thranduil, we ran into a goblin-pack staking out the end of the forest road. Luckily, it was a small pack and we took them by surprise, so we dealt with or chased them all away without much trouble.

Well, without much trouble except for my promptly falling over one of their bodies as we started to move onwards.

And as you can guess, my tripping didn't just end with my ankle being slightly sore for a couple hours. No, my luck and clumsiness meant it was more seriously wounded.

"We should go back," Stoic said. "You need healing."

"I'll never get to Laketown to warn my Sister if I go back!" I protested. "I don't think it's broken, so as long as we go slowly and carefully, and I keep it wrapped tightly, I should get on."

The Mirkwood elves looked at me like they'd never seen someone refuse healing before. Elladan and Elrohir, who hadn't left just yet, remembered the cut on my arm, and were more used to my stubbornness.

"It will not heal as quickly if you insist on walking on it," Elladan tried to reason with me. "At least let me take a look."

"My mother's hurt her ankle twice, each time worse than this," I said. "I doubt it will last more than the day."

But as stubborn as I was, elves are older and thus have more capacity for wills of steel, and so I acquiesced to Elladan taking a look at my ankle.

"It is not broken," he said. "But I still think walking on it will only make it worse."

"If I soak the wrappings at night," I said, "It's growing cold enough that come morning, they will be chilled enough to reduce any swelling."

The Mirkwood elves looked unconvinced. "Well?" I asked. "How do you deal with ankles that are in pain due to twisting in strange directions?"

"We take them to a healer," Surly said. "Which is where you ought to go."

"Yes, and I suppose I ought to stay indoors all winter, and reach Laketown in the spring, only to find it's been razed by dragonfire."

"Dragonfire?" Stoic asks.

"Why would the dragon go after Laketown?" Elrohir asked. "It's dwarrows who are going to challenge him, if he's still alive."

"Not that I've ever met a dragon, but the tales say they're clever and conniving," I said. "If the dragon is alive, he may well find out the dwarrows journeyed through Laketown. He may well think that Laketown deserves to burn for helping a company of dwarrows get to his mountain."

"So you're not simply planning to visit your sister after all," Elladan said.

"And once again my habit for attempting to appear mysterious returns to cause me grief," I muttered. "You're correct. I have the ulterior motive of trying to convince her to leave the city. Forgive me for worrying about my family's safety in secret."

This was apparently enough to convince all four elves that I should be allowed to continue on to laketown, although not before Surly fashioned me a walking stick of sorts, "to avoid putting all your weight on that leg."

We travelled slowly, my ankle a little more painful thanI'd expected. Some days were better than others, but even with my Silvan companions more sympathetic to my motivation, travel was still quiet, and I still did not learn their names. Elladan and Elrohir left to travel southwards fairly quickly, admonishing me that if I did convince my sister to leave, we should head to Lothlorien and they'd vouch for our trustworthiness.

"I kept all sorts of secrets from you, and you still think me trustworthy?" I said.

This got them laughing as they departed.

This left me travelling with two elves who didn't wish to speak with me much, busy looking out for any other goblins or orcs that might be skulking about along the river.

But finally, and with much careful walking, we made it to Laketown.

And it seemed the dwarrows hadn't left yet. I'd have thanked the Valar for my luck, but the way I found out they were still there is that my blade's original owner recognised his missing knife.

"Hey!" I heard an angry voice behind me, and turned to see a blond dwarf striding towards me, all righteous indignation. "That blade is mine!"

I suppose it didn't help that I was flanked by two elves from Mirkwood; he probably thought they'd given it to me after confiscating it from him.

"My apologies," I said, hurriedly unfastening the blade so that I could offer it back to its owner. "I took it off the corpse of a goblin in the Misty Mountains. I am glad to have found its rightful owner, so that I might return it."

"You... didn't get it from them?" he asked, looking up at Surly and Stoic and frowning slightly.

I shook my head. "This blade served me well against two bands of goblins, but I am glad to return it to you now." I held it out in both hands, offering.

He sighed and shook his head. "You know what, keep it," he said. "If you've been wandering in the wilds fighting goblins and your elf companions haven't seen fit to properly outfit you for such travels, you have need of such a blade more than I. I have many blades."

I tried not to let my surprise show. I'd wholly expected him to snatch the blade from my hands, but now he was allowing me to have it?

"That is a generous gift," I said. "I am honoured you have judged me as worthy of it, Master...?"

"Fili," he said, and smiled. "At your service."

And somehow that led to my being dragged along by Fili (who I rather quickly realised was Thorin Oakenshield's sister-son) to meet some of the rest of his company.

Some of the rest of his company included, it turned out, the members of the company I'd tried to talk to while drunk on Dorwinion wine.

"Aren't you the odd one from Midsummer's eve?"

And it turned out my behatted friend remembered me.

"Ah," I said, "I should apologise for that. It turns out the wine they were serving was stronger than I'm used to."

He laughed, while most everyone else in the room just looked confused.

"So what brought you this far over the Misty Mountains?" My dwarf friend - as much as I could call him friend - asked.

"Well, I have a sister who lives here in Esgaroth and it was come visit her here or else try to head south to Gondor or Rohan for the winter. I haven't seen her in longer than I'd like, so I travelled this way."

"If you were in Rivendell when we were, and then you came here, you could have told us you were headed here and come with us!" One of the dwarrows, a young looking one with dark hair and eyes, said.

"I might have," I said, "but I got a little too much wine on Midsummer's eve and woke cursed with an awful headache well after you lot had left."

"Aye, wine'll do that to you," my hatted dwarf said. "But surely you didn't travel alone?"

I shook my head. "I went with Elrond's twin sons. They decided to pay a visit to their sister who's in Lothlorien. We separated paths just on the east side of Mirkwood."

"And you were escorted here by the Mirkwood Captain of the Guard and the Keeper of the Keys."

"Oh, is that who they were? I just called them Surly and Stoic."

This drew a laugh from the gathered dwarrows.

I continued, "not very good traveling company, if you ask me. I think they're supposed to confirm that I do have a sister who lives here, their king didn't quite seem to believe me."

"Their king didn't seem to believe we were just starving in the forest," the dark haired youngling spoke up.

"His forest is sick," I said. "Perhaps it's affected him."

There was an awkward pause after that, before the behatted dwarf's brother spoke up, in a calm and quiet voice. "You said something on Midsummer's eve about us saving your life?"

"I did? Oh good, at least part of what I was trying to say got out, then!" I said. "Yes, I um... wandered away from my family once when I was a child, and into your camp. You three took me in for the night." I nodded at the two brothers and their cousin.

"I knew it, Bom!" The dwarf with the hat said. "I told you this must be that wee child we looked after in Rohan!"

"I thought you were someone from a caravan we'd travelled with," the redhead said. "The wandering child in Rohan was nearly twenty years ago, you don't look old enough."

"I'm older than I look," I said. "Yes, I was the lonely wandering child whose mother was horribly offensive and assumed you'd demand payment. In any case, there was an orc scout in the area that my family had killed, and I don't think I'd have survived the night if it weren't for you, and I never did get to thank you properly."

"Aye, consider us properly thanked," my hat-wearing friend said. "Bofur, at your service."

And THAT somehow led to my not getting to my sister's house at all, staying up late getting to know some dwarrows until Thorin Oakenshield came back from wherever he'd been and giving me an odd disapproving look as he ordered my new friends to their rooms.

I tried not to think about the fact that my new friends were going to be trying to reclaim a dragon-infested mountain in the near future.

===

So this went on an unannounced hiatus. Basically, the day after I wrote the last update, I had to deal with an ankle that was super painfully sore for a few days, and then once I thought it was getting better, it got sore again. I'm still working on getting back into the habit of walking regularly, and I was feeling a bit of writer's block with the story part of this, so I decided I'd just hold off on updating until I got to Laketown.

So in thanks for your patience, have a super-long update.

I made it to Laketown yesterday, but didn't actually think to do the math until today, so.

I've officially caught up to Thorin and Company again. (901 miles into my journey.  Even if it was slower than I hoped initially, that's still an accomplishment!)

It turned out that despite King Thranduil saying nothing of an escort, and my suspicion he didn't care overmuch about my wellbeing, I did have an escort when I set out.

Elladan and Elrohir had apparently delivered whatever message they were supposed to and gotten a response, so they would be travelling with me at least until we left the forest. Then they would be heading southwards to Lothlorien.

As well, there were two other elves travelling with us. Neither introduced themself, so I resorted to thinking of them as the surly brunet and the stoic redhead.

We did not manage to leave until after the midday meal, so our progress the first day out was perhaps not what the Mirkwood elves might have hoped. They didn't seem quite as willing to let me set the pace as Elladan and Elrohir were.

I wondered how long I would have an escort. Would surly and stoic stay with me only until I was out of their king's realm? Or would they make sure I actually went to Esgaroth and met my sister, to confirm I hadn't lied to their king?

===

I travelled 5 miles today, and am thus now 860 miles into my journey.

Thorin and Company are still at Laketown; 901 miles into their journey.

I am 41 miles behind.

NOTE: The post is short today because writers block and tiredness.

Second note (to people who know their middle earth denizens): I've not 100% decided who my Mirkwood Escort is made up of, but I'm pretty sure "Surly" is Galion, tasked with escorting that strange potentially lying mortal as punishment for getting all kinds of drunk and letting the dwarrows leave.

"Come on! It's the first night of Autumn! They're having a feast in town, can't we go?"

My siblings and I look up at our parents in anticipation... when did they get so tall?

My mother smiles. She looks younger than I remember... is this a memory?? I wonder vaguely, before the scene moves on to the feast in the village. There's lots of food and drink of all kinds, and the whole square is beautiful, surrounded in trees with their leaves changing colour to gold and orange.

The food smells delicious. I can feel my mouth watering.

My father picks me up on his shoulders... no, he's not my father, his hair is too dark, too long... but still he seems familiar.

Another festival, another village. This must be Breetown's festival to welcome spring. My brain is trying to tell me something, but all the colours and the noise and the sun shining bright in the air make me feel at ease.

At the edges of the crowd, I spot two Rangers. Why do they seem so familiar?

Another feast, not as lavish as the ones before, but compared to my regular meals, a feast. My brother's wedding. No, my sister's. Someone is talking in a corner of the room, in hushed tones, musical tones that I feel like I shouldn't understand, but I do understand some of it.

They're worried about crossing a river with neither bridge nor boat? Or they did? And the results were less than satisfactory?

My sister is hugging me. "Farewell!" she says. "If you ever make it across the Mountains, you must stop and visit us!"

"And why was your companion travelling across the Mountains?"

My sister fades away into nothingness. Everything fades away. I am surrounded by a soft light.

Where am I?

It occurs to me that my eyes are closed.

"You will have to ask our companion that directly..."

That voice sounds familiar.

"Do you make a habit of travelling with mortals whose purposes you know not?"

That voice doesn't.

"It is not our tale to tell."

I am so hungry.

"And if you are headed for your Grandmother's wood, why not cross the Anduin and travel south around my realm?"

"Our companion..."

I open my eyes. I'm lying on some sort of bed in a room that looks like it's made up of tree branches... or perhaps tree roots. Elladan and Elrohir are standing nearby, conversing with a tall elf with pale hair and a regal bearing. Is this the king of the Woodland realm?

How did I get here?

The memory returns to me. I'd made it nearly all the way across the enchanted river when my foot slipped on the rope. Despite clutching the other rope with my hands, my foot still plunged into the river. I felt woozy and then...

And then I was dreaming of feasts in my childhood.

I close my eyes again, hoping I can pretend to still be asleep, to gain some composure before having to talk to an elf King.

"Ah, you're awake."

How can they tell?!

I open my eyes. I try to say that yes, I am awake, but what comes out is more like "yemwake."

The confused expression on the King of the Woodland Realm's face makes my incoherence almost worth it.

He leaves me with my companions.

"Once you can actually speak in complete words, he'll want to know why you're travelling through his lands," Elrohir tells me.

"I'm on m'way to Esg'roth," I say, sitting up and stretching. How long was I asleep? Actually, that's a good thing to know...

"How long was I out for?" I ask.

"It is now the 25th of September," Elladan tells me. "Nearing dusk, if you wish me to be specific."

"And we crossed that river on the..."

"The 18th."

A week. That enchanted river knocked me out for a week. "Someone ought to build a bridge," I say. "It's not safe."

"But why are you on your way to Esgaroth?" Elrohir asks. "A group of overly-secretive dwarrows recently snuck out of here in supposedly empty wine barrels and arrived at Esgaroth three days ago, proclaiming themselves to be the company of Thorin Oakenshield, on a mission to reclaim Erebor."

"So a human headed towards Laketown is suspicious now?" I ask.

"It might seem a little more than coincidental," Elladan says, "especially since you were carrying a dwarven blade."

I frown. "I picked that up off a goblin," I say. "You told him I picked it up off a goblin, right?"

Elladan nods. "That's why it's still with your gear," he says. "So, why are you travelling to Esgaroth?"

I sigh. "Okay, full disclosure, so you two don't act all surprised and make it look like I'm lying. I'm sure Halbaron and Elenhil let you in on the fact that I like to appear mysterious?"

My companions are looking at me suspiciously now.

"It's never very interesting in the long run," I say. "After finding myself so close to the Misty Mountains, I would have wanted to cross them anyway, regardless of any extenuating circumstances involving drunken shenanigans. You see, my sister lives in Esgaroth, and I haven't seen her since she travelled there. From the letters I've received, she has a child now, a sister-son who I've not met. So I'm headed to Esgaroth to visit her."

"Why only tell us this now?" Elladan asks.

"You never asked before," I say. "Where did you think I was planning to spend the winter? That I would simply try my luck at making friends?"

"Isn't that what you usually do?" Elrohir asks.

"Here, if you don't believe me, I suppose you may read the most recent letter she sent me," I say.

I pull it out of an inside pocket sewn into my tunic, to protect my valuables, and hand it to Elrohir. He reads it and passes it to his brother.

"You really do like pretending to be mysterious, don't you," Elladan says, handing me the letter back.

"It's a bad habit," I say. "So, do you think my reason is reasonable enough?"

"I knew there was a reason we wanted to wait until you were awake and make you explain yourself to King Thranduil," Elrohir says. "I think you might even pull it off."

"Well, I'm just telling the truth," I say.

And indeed, I am able to pull it off. It probably helps that King Thranduil is drinking some wine while I explain to him both my family history of travelling from place to place, and then my troubles in Bree meaning I knew I wouldn't find any work there, my befriending of two Rangers, and my realisation that I was so close to the Misty Mountains that it wouldn't be much more work to cross them and visit my Sister, than to travel southwards to Rohan.

The wine helps him not question why I wouldn't have taken the greenway south from Bree. Or perhaps he hasn't been west of the Misty Mountains for quite some time and doesn't know the roadways between the human lands.

In any case, he agrees I'm not some sort of threat, although he comments on my stature as though he'd like to insinuate I've got some dwarf in my family tree somewhere.

I am to be furnished with supplies and sent towards Esgaroth on the morrow. No word has been said of a companion. Is this the first person I've met on my journey who is wholly unconcerned with my penchant for travelling alone?

===

I got carried by the brothers 28 miles over the last week (unfortunately I didn't make it a comparable number of steps, it's going to be a challenge picking up the walking again starting tomorrow, but I will make my best go of it!  I'm just counting some of those pre-journey miles here, I guess.) I am now 855 miles into my journey.

As was said in the text above, Thorin and Company reached Laketown on the 22nd, and are still there, 901 miles into their journey.

I am 46 miles away from reaching them and meeting up with my sister.

The rationing of our food was beginning to get to me. I tried to join in as much of the conversation as I could, to distract myself from the constant dull ache of emptiness in my stomach.

I understood the reason behind the rationing, and I knew that I would by no means starve, but I felt like all the walking I was doing, I needed more food, not less...

And I couldn't even sate my belly by sipping extra water, since we were trying to ration that even more strictly. I was so exhausted because of this that by the time we stopped I didn't stop to reflect on the day before crawling into my bedroll, I just crawled into my bedroll and fell asleep.

Well, that was yesterday... today it's towards the end of the day and we've come across the enchanted river. We made the decision that we're going to try to cross it, but first I'm waiting while my companions try to decide how best to cross a river with no bridge and no boat. We may have to stop here for the night and try again in the morning.

"There was a boat here before," Elladan said when we first stopped at the river. A little black boat, just big enough to hold three."

"Someone must have missed anchoring it properly, and it floated away down with the currend," Elrohir had replied.

There is a rope here; it looks like the company of dwarrows crossed this river earlier, and also had to go through the same ordeal we are. Or perhaps they're the ones who lost the boat.

"We might be able to fashion a bridge of sorts, with another rope, and walk across it, as they do in Lothlorien," Elrohir says.

"I don't think our companion has quite the sense of balance for that," Elladan says.

"Two ropes, then, and our companion can cross between us."

"I must remind you of how clumsy I am," I say. "I'll fall in."

"You'll have one rope to walk on and one rope to hold onto; a bridge of sorts," Elladan tells me.

Somehow, between hooks and knots, Elrohir manages to throw two ropes until they are truly hooked, one not far above the river and the other above it at roughly the height of my hands.

He climbs up and they are now waiting to help me get onto this so-called bridge. I dearly hope my clumsiness doesn't get the better of me; if I fall, I'll wind up dreaming my way downstream until I either reach the boat or drown...

I really think we ought to wait until morning, but it's too late to declare that now.

Here goes nothing...

===

And plunk, my fictional self manages to not be clumsy... until trying to disembark this weird bridge at the other side of the river. Oops. Luckily, I didn't fall into the middle of the river, so my companions could drag me out before I went for a trip downstream. If only the dwarrows hadn't lost the boat when they crossed, I might still be awake!

WOW I was tired last night! I forgot to post an update yesterday! So I guess you guys get a double-day update.

I made it 5 miles yesterday and 6 miles today and am now 827 miles into my journey (I'm assuming Elladan and Elrohir decided to camp a little past the enchanted river. Also, I feel weird about switching into present-tense, but it reads really weird if my present self is unconscious-ish and yet somehow talking about the day? There really wasn't a non-awkward way to write this bit. Oh well.)

Thorin and company are still in Thranduil's dungeons.

I am 28 miles behind.

NOTE: I have decided that I AM going to be taking a vacation. I will still endeavour to walk at least 10,000 steps (a little over 4 miles) every day, if not more, but I'm not going to do a daily post of my dreams; instead I'm going to assume that even though they have to drag/carry me along, the fact that Elladan and Elrohir can usually travel a little faster if they're not trying to keep pace with me means they continue at my average speed while I'm asleep/unconscious. Or maybe they'll even go faster.

The forest continued to look the same as ever to me today, dim and full of gnarled trees that I was sure were different from each other but every few trees, I'd forget what the tree a few before had looked like and become convinced I was looking at the same tree. I could tell why leaving the path would be a bad idea... without excellent directional skills, it would be impossible to find your way through to the edge of the forest.

I was also aware that it wasn't very likely that the woodland realm lay neatly along the path. After all, the last homely house was inside a hidden valley, why would the elven realm in Mirkwood be any easier to find?

I hoped my companions had excellent directional skills. They hadn't steered wrong so far, but finding and following a path, and finding your way through tangled, identical-seeming trees... were two different things.

I decided not to worry about that, knowing we'd have to cross the river before we had to leave the path, and we had yet to reach the river.

I tried not to worry about the river, either, although that was a little more difficult, since I didn't know how close we were to it.

===

I made it 5 miles today and am now 816 miles into my journey.

Thorin and Company have yet to escape Thranduil's dungeons, though I think Bilbo is working hard to come up with a plan.

We got a bit of a late start this morning, because I was sure we were going through our food faster than we thought, and wanted to take stock of what we had left.

I must merely have been growing stronger, or more used to the weight, because we still clearly had enough food, although I did notice that my companions put most of the food back into their packs to carry, leaving me with a possibly even lighter pack than before...

Despite the late start, we made a fairly good pace, with Elrohir sure we weren't much more than a week's journey from the Woodland Realm by the time we stopped for the night. How he could tell how far we'd come when the forest looked the same to me, I didn't ask.

===

I made it five miles today and am now 811 miles into my journey.

Thorin and Company are still in Thranduil's dungeons.

My pack felt lighter today than before, and not simply because of the constant depletion of our supply of food. We were being careful to avoid running out (barring unforseen delays), but my pack felt too light for the amount of food I should have left in it.

I tried not to worry about it, and instead focused on walking with as much speed as I could.

Needless to say, walking harder meant I fell asleep almost as soon as I'd laid out my bedroll.

===

I made it six miles today, and am now 806 miles into my journey.

Thorin and Company are still locked up in Thranduil's dungeons.

The forest seemed extra creepy today, even though I couldn't see the eyes, I felt like there were more of whatever they belonged to, watching us. I stuck close to the twins.

"We should be nearing the river that flows through the forest within the next week," Elrohir said as we stopped to end our day's journey.

"That's the one we're really not supposed to refill our waterskins from?" I asked.

"A strange enchantment lays over that river, yes," Elladan said. "We'll have to make sure our water lasts until we're in the realm of the Woodland Elves."

"Where do the Woodland Elves get their water?" I asked.

"From a different river," Elrohir said. "One that does not cross the path."

I nodded, and yawned. "Fair enough," I said.

"Sleep now," Elladan said. "We won't come across the stream tomorrow, I doubt we're that far into the forest yet."

===

I made it five miles today, and am now 800 miles into my journey!

Thorin and Company? Still in Thranduil's dungeons.

I am 55 miles behind.